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The international fragrance association promotes its members' sense of creativity and encourages a sense of enjoyment in their products.

It fosters a sense of understanding of consumers’ needs and demands a sense of responsibility in their satisfaction.

Adding to our sense of wellbeing.

And increasing our sense of prosperity.

Our sense of smell is directly connected to the brain’s limbic system where our sense of memory and our emotions are stored.

That’s the reason why fragrances are so uniquely able to trigger our memories and stimulate our emotions. And why the satisfaction of so many of our needs, wants and desires depends on the fragrance industry’s sense of curiosity, creativity, responsibility and purpose.

The curiosity that invests much of the value that the industry creates in fresh insights into human behavior and consumer choice. And in new research in the science of fragrance ingredients such as essential oils, natural aromatics and complex molecules and their infinite mixtures and reactions.

The creativity that provides the industry’s brand owner customers with innovative tools to add value to their products and to create and segment markets.

The responsibility that ensures the industry’s regulation by issuing and updating safety standards and demanding discipline in their compliance.

And the purpose that drives the industry’s 900 trained perfumers and employees to sustain a value chain from the processing of raw ingredients through the creation of proprietary blends to the manufacture, marketing, distribution and sale of consumer products.

The fragrance industry invests up to 18% of its total annual revenues in research and development.

Its lifeblood is the knowledge that drives the innovation and understanding that enables the industry to fulfill its purpose as a vital platform technology. And allows it to ensure product quality throughout its resulting value chain.

Innovation creates new molecules, synthetic materials and fragrance delivery systems and improves the sustainability of raw materials and manufacturing and production processes.

While an understanding of human behaviour and attitudes allows the industry and its brand owner customers to meet our changing needs, wants and desires responsibly.

Together the industry’s r&d investment represents a substantial body of intellectual property. New molecules and fragrance delivery systems are patent protected, for example, and original fragrance compositions are trade secrets.

Above all the fragrance industry is a creative industry. An art as much as it is a science.

The industry’s creative innovation is the bedrock of a value chain that stretches from the processing of raw ingredients through the creation of proprietary fragrance blends to the manufacturing, marketing, distribution and sale of consumer products.

And its success in satisfying our needs, wants and desires is ultimately dependent on the individual inspiration of just 900 of its 32,000 employees: the expert perfumers. And on the knowledge and discipline gained from the investment of 7 years of education and training that each has required to qualify as a ‘nose’.

Each of the 60,000 to 80,000 unique proprietary fragrance blends that they create each year is made up of between 50 and 250 ingredients drawn from a palate of 3,000 or so essential oils, natural aromatics and the complex molecules that are the products of the industry’s extensive research and development programme. A handful of truly world class perfumers also answer some 600 to 800 briefs for new fine fragrances a year.

Each unique formula balances individual notes and groups of notes in accords in harmony in much the same way as the composition of a piece of music. But unlike music it is not subject to copyright or patent but protected only by the law of trade secrets.

The fragrance industry takes its regulation seriously and is committed to undertaking all of its environmental, social and economic responsibilities thoroughly.
All of its ingredients and compounds are rigorously assessed for toxicity and allergens and IFRA works closely with regulators and stakeholders to issue and update comprehensive safety standards. Its members account for 90% of the global production volume of fragrance compounds and the IFRA Code of Practice prescribes the behaviour that is expected of them.

IFRA encourages and facilitates compliance with the Code of Practice. However, each IFRA member company is individually responsible for ensuring that they comply with the Code of Conduct and the IFRA Standards, as well as applicable laws in the countries in which they operate.

Through initiatives in energy and water conservation, emission and waste reduction and education and community relations projects it continues to invest in improving the sustainability of its harvest of raw materials, its processing of essential oils and its manufacture of fragrance blends.

Fragrances can communicate cleanliness, freshness and softness. They can alter our mood and they can trigger allure and attraction.

Because fragrances are uniquely able to trigger memory and stimulate emotion they are invaluable tools for band owners in the communication of product performance and the enhancement of brand value and brand loyalty. They help to launch and establish premium products and in the segmentation of existing markets and the creation of new ones.

The fragrance industry’s investment in the intellectual property that its fragrance blends represent is protected by the law of trade secrets.

And as such it is a vital platform technology which supports and sustains a value chain from the processing of raw ingredients through the creation of proprietary blends to the sustainable manufacture, marketing, distribution and sale of consumer products.

The functional benefits of fragrances are immediate and ubiquitous.
They answer our everyday needs, wants and desires to remove or to mask and control malodour and so to improve the physical quality of our everyday lives. It is the fragrance industry’s investment in understanding how to do so that enables brand owners to satisfy our needs responsibly and to create added value in doing so.

The smell of clean, for example, signifies care. It is a motive and a reward for the regular and effective cleaning that is necessary to ensure that our home environment is hygienic, healthy and safe.

Fragrances alter our mood by relieving stress and creating calm. And they create a sense of self, a sense of family, and a sense of place by helping to define our homes to ourselves and others. The smell of clean laundry, in fact, is the single smell that we most commonly associate with the comfort of home.

Beyond the satisfaction of functional needs, fragrances also play an important emotional role in altering our mood and in triggering our instincts of allure, attraction and desire.

They stimulate confidence and distinctiveness. They contribute to our sense of beauty and ultimately to the satisfaction of our sense of wellbeing, our sense of enjoyment and our sense of pleasure.

In the fine fragrance market in particular, it is the expert knowledge and the creative inspiration and innovation of the industry’s handful of truly world class perfumers that creates the iconic premium brands that are as much a part of our culture as haute couture.

Fragrance blends for personal care products account for half of the industry’s business while household care products and fine fragrances make up a quarter each. But as well as the consumer products that answer many of our functional and emotional needs, wants and desires, the fragrance industry also creates employment and prosperity.
Its continuing investment in knowledge based innovation, understanding and creativity returns a substantial economic contribution to society, directly sustaining some 32,000 jobs and creating $5.2 billion of Gross Value Added annually.
And as the platform technology that underpins a uniquely durable value chain its wider economic value is hard to underestimate. In the manufacturing and retail of fragrance products the industry is estimated to support an additional 778,000 jobs world wide and create a further $33.6 billion of Gross Value Added. In the European Union alone, which accounts for 37% of the industry’s sales, its overall contribution to GDP has been estimated at 1.2%.

And beyond manufacturing and retail, of course, the fragrance industry’s value chain also supports the transport and logistics industries as well as marketing services and creative industries such as research, graphic design, advertising and magazine publishing.

While the trade secrets that protect the intellectual property vested in the 60,000 to 80,000 unique proprietary fragrance blends that the industry creates each year also represent a lasting economic and cultural resource in their own right.